In the wake of the news.

`Machine' Talks Softly, Swings A Mean Stick

April 08, 1999|By Skip Bayless.

AUGUSTA, Ga. — Imagine the green-jacketed lords of Augusta numbing their pain at the clubhouse bar the night Tiger ate their beloved "toonament," as they call it.

This was two years ago. Woods had won their Masters by 12 shots while turning their Augusta National into a miniature golf course. Even the master of the Masters, Jack Nicklaus, predicted Woods would win enough green jackets to start a clothing line.

Lord, how could members protect their hallowed ground from this Sherman-like onslaught? Lengthening the course too much--"Tigerizing" it--would only lengthen Tiger's advantage. Grow some rough? Plant more pines? Pin placements in Rae's Creek? Bobby Jones was moaning in his grave.

So the lords of Augusta decided to invent a Tiger-beating machine and make it everything Tiger wasn't.

They armed it with nerves of titanium, joints of trimetal, graphite muscles. They gave it a short-legged weight-lifter's build, a lower center of gravity than Tiger's and, hence, more consistently repeatable swing and sweet-spot contact.

Yet they made that swing freakishly flexible, producing a power fade to counteract Tiger's Augusta-humbling draw. The machine wouldn't hit it quite as far as Tiger, but it would always land its tee shots in Position A. The machine would be a more accurate iron player, a more reliable putter and have a more solid, unspectacular short game.

The machine would be emotionless, unflappable, impenetrable, mysteriously intimidating. No billboard-sized Tiger smile. No off-course distractions complicated by hanging with Michael Jordan and Kevin Costner. No emotion-mixing friendships with competitors such as Mark O'Meara.

The machine would confuse and confound fans and foes by going from good ol' boy (chewing tobacco while playing), to Gen Xer (strawberry-blond goatee) to intellectual (reading Ayn Rand novels) to nerd (buttoning his golf shirts to the top). Always the machine's eyes--eyes of the tiger--would be hidden by wraparound shades out of the next century, if not galaxy.

On the eve of the 1999 Masters, Nicklaus would say of the machine, "There's a great intimidation factor to him."

The lords of Augusta would call the machine David Duval, let it loose on golf and hope it began eating away at Tiger's kid-in-a-candy-store confidence.

Isn't that how it happened? Maybe not. But for sure David Duval has been the perfect antidote to Tiger and, if golf is lucky, he'll be the perfect foil and rival.

For the past 1 1/2 years, Duval has dominated golf the way 12 billion new Tiger fans believed Woods would. While many young Tiger fans wouldn't know David Duval from David Brinkley, Duval quietly has taken Tiger to the woodshed. In a feat right up there with Byron Nelson's 11 straight victories in the war year of 1945, Duval has won 11 of his last 34 tournaments.

If Tiger had won 11 of 34, he might be president by now, if not king.

Instead, the pressure is now on Tiger to respond, to beat the "machine" at the tournament Nicklaus predicted Tiger would win "10 times." No, Duval hasn't yet won a major. But Duval did win The Players Championship, which the players regard as a major, and Duval did have a three-shot lead with three holes to play in last year's Masters.

At last check, Woods has won just one major himself. Did the world overreact to his 12-stroke march down Magnolia Lane? Is Woods proving to be no more and no less than a very good player? In two years, what exactly has he done to justify all the early greater-than-Nicklaus hype?

Nothing. Nicklaus won three of the first eight majors he played.

For sure Woods is proving to be everything Duval isn't--flappable, vulnerable, dangerously self-conscious and self-analytical. In a way, he has "Tigerized" himself. Woods has come to care far too much what far too many people think of him. Duval couldn't care less.

Woods wears his emotions on his gallery's sleeves. He grimaces, curses, pounds his driver, lashes out at himself or a noise-making fan or photographer. Duval guards his joy and fury as fiercely as he does his private life.

Tiger has fired his business manager, his coach and now his caddie, Fluff. Duval has a tight circle of longtime friends and business associates, including sports psychologist Bob Rotella, who tells USA Today: "David's mind is so peaceful that . . . he's not thinking about the consequences, the winning or losing. He's . . . just lost in the shot."

Woods is an electrical storm of love him or don't. There isn't much to like or dislike about Duval. Woods constantly complains about the hassles of being the most famous active athlete in the world. Duval gladly knows he'll never compete with Woods for star appeal.

Woods has let too many older "close friends" on tour get inside his head, tell him how to act, take the carefree edge off his confidence. Duval keeps his distance from competitors.

So now Tiger is the hunted in his own preserve. A Duval victory might inspire toasts in the clubhouse bar. Unless, of course, the "machine" wins by 12.